Jazz Articles about Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson: Happenings

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 20, 2006

1966-2006: quarant’anni. Sì, sono tanti, ma come spesso succede nel jazz il tempo è una barriera astratta e questo disco ne è un ulteriore prova. Siamo nella seconda metà degli anni sessanta e all’età di venticinque anni Hutcherson, dopo aver già fatto parecchia gavetta, dal punto discografico era apparso già in due dischi importanti, Out to Lunch di Dolphy e One Step Beyond di Jackie McLean. Hutcherson rappresentava la nuova era dei vibrafonisti e il suo compito non era facile ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Youthful Exuberance

by Terrell Kent Holmes
November 9, 2006

Watching vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson play his instrument is like dropping in on someone jiving with a dear old friend. He banters with the vibes as he plays, weaving his lanky body to the rhythm he's laying down. Suddenly he will frown down at the board, appearing to question its tone as though it were an insolent child or has made an odd statement with which he disagrees. But then Hutcherson will grin mischievously at something shared only between him and ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Happenings

by Chris May
October 17, 2006

Recorded in 1966, and here with a 24-bit remaster by original engineer Rudy Van Gelder, Happenings heralded a new, less structurally adventurous approach from avant-garde standard-bearer and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. As such it is, inevitably if rather unfairly--the individual performances are outstanding--less of a headline affair than the work which came before it.

Happenings is the first album to present Hutcherson as the featured soloist fronting a conventional rhythm section, instead of amongst the experimentally-inclined sextets and quintets he'd led ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Oblique

by Kevin Ray
August 4, 2006

This album, recorded in 1967, is so special that it's hard to imagine why it wasn't released until 1980--and even then, only in Japan. Energy, creativity and empathy permeate it, and the players fit together wonderfully. Bassist Albert Stinson is subtle and inventive, making it all the more of a loss that he died two years later, at 24. Had he lived, he would have become known as one of the giants of his instrument. The first ...

McCoy Tyner: Time for Tyner

by John Kelman
September 19, 2005

With the release of the latest batch of Rudy Van Gelder Blue Note reissues comes the opportunity to hear vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson on two sessions that demonstrate just how flexible he is--something that continues to define him to this day on projects like the recently-released SFJazz Collective. But unlike SFJazz, which is a true cooperative ensemble, we're talking about Hutcherson the sideman on the '64 date that would become pianist Andrew Hill's Judgement, and here, on pianist McCoy Tyner's '68 ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Oblique

by Chris May
August 18, 2005

A welcome and worthwhile addition to Blue Note's Rudy Van Gelder remaster series, Oblique is one of only two quartet albums Bobby Hutcherson recorded for the label, and it's the most enduring by a long mile. Two tracks in particular, “Oblique" and “Bi-Sectional," both by genius drummer/composer Joe Chambers, are bona fide, five star hall-of-fame greats.

Hutcherson's first quartet album was Happenings, recorded in '66. Oblique followed in '67. The lineup on both occasions was the same except ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Now!

by Russ Musto
March 25, 2005

Few records capture and transcend their moment in time as definitively as Now!. Recorded in 1969, the disc emotionally echoes sentiments central to the black power movement of the day. The music is strong, passionate, sensitive, optimistic, and--like the struggle it heralded--timeless. The premier vibraphonist/composer of his generation, Bobby Hutcherson had already expanded the modern jazz vocabulary with his quintet of tenor saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Stanley Cowell (or Kenny Barron), bassist Herbie Lewis, and drummer Joe Chambers. On Now! ...